Friday, 17 April 2015

DCC Campaign Update: Orange Shaman Psychic-Hotline

In this week's DCC game, the PCs:

-were given the generous offer by the Azure Order that the next time there was a situation that required putting one's very life in peril for some minor good and no guarantee of material compensation, the PCs would be the first in line.

-chuckled at the irony that Rick/Rickandra would be buried as a woman, as 'she had always wanted'.

-were determined to actually go find Sezrekan, kick the living shit out of him, and take back the Sacred USB Cable.

-were a little disheartened to learn that Sezrekan's tower isn't even on this dimension.

-were further disheartened when they realized that in the world of the Last Sun, the Azure Order are pretty much as great as it gets in terms of good-aligned, powerful, and reliable allies. There literally doesn't seem to be anyone else available that fits all three categories.

-went to buy some blowguns, but not to hunt the deadly Spindly-Killerfish.

-bored Sandy the Bikini-Chainmail Barbarian enough that she decided to go off and get herself totally wasted-drunk and beat the crap out of a bunch of tough-guy mutants... or as she calls it, "a short vacation".

-were presented with one of those aforementioned generous-offers by the Azure Order. But, finding themselves short-staffed, decided they needed some cannon fodd--er, new recruits. So they picked up a superannuated street-urchin who was set loose in the forest by slavers after he proved too ugly to be purchased, an Orange Mutant apprentice-shaman with psychic powers, and an assistant re-animator. It wasn't quite clear just what a 're-animator' does but he came with a brain in a jar.

-were sent south, to discover the cause of increased aggression by the Purple Mutant Barbarians, and resolve the mystery of what appear to be unprovoked and vicious attacks on local mutants by strange twisted Treants. When told they had to go south, several party members responded at once with the quip that "this party has been going south for quite some time now.."

-Were surprised to encounter a hideous creature in the forest, somewhat resembling a 'grey alien' only fairly obese and wearing an expensive yet slightly-skanky dress, and a little tiara.
-Were even more surprised when she introduced herself as Queen Priscilla, of the Grey Lands, and said she was looking for Bill the Elf. They were surprised, I note, because none of the player characters presently alive and in attendance this session had actually been around back when Queen Priscilla last appeared.

-found that Queen Priscilla was highly disraught at the news that Bill the Elf died; then came back, then died again, and now appears to be indisposed.

-Discovered that Queen Priscilla had hoped that Bill the Elf would help her reconquer her kingdom, as she had apparently been overthrown and exiled from her home dimension by "some green asshole", who they deduced was in fact the Game-Controller of the Jade Dimension, that had managed to flee from the PCs in that other dimension just before the PCs totally ruined it. Apparently, he managed to set himself up nicely in the Grey Dimension; not that it was hard, since apparently the entirety of Queen Priscilla's people were despertate to see her overthrown.

(to visualize Priscilla, imagine a cross between this:)

(and this:)

-decide to take Priscilla with them, in the hopes of restoring her to her birthright of tyranny over the grey people, so that in exchange she will provide them an inter-dimensional army to move against Sezrekan.

-start to think, after about 30 straight minutes of Priscilla talking nonstop about what a slag Tiffany is, and how Brad is totally into her and not Tiffany, but Tiffany lied about Priscilla having herpes so she could get him to sleep with her instead, because she's a total slut, that they've made a terrible, terrible mistake.

-decide it's time to use the Silence spell. Which gives them about six melee rounds of peace and quiet, only to have Priscilla start all over again. They then decide that it's time for Sandy to use her "silence spell", which involves Sandy using a club to beat Priscilla into unconsciousness.

-Spend much of the night by the campfire arguing, over the sound of Priscilla's loud snoring, about whether an inter-dimensional army would really be worth another 24 hours, much less possibly weeks, with Priscilla. The Cleric Aq'basha, filled with thirst for vengeance against Sezrekan, believes it is. The rest of the party thinks it isn't, except for the ex-street-waif that thinks he "might have a shot with" Priscilla, causing everyone to question his eyesight or his sanity.

-watch as the Psychic Orange Mutant Apprentice-Shaman claims to Sandy that he can effectively read fortunes with his divination bones. Sandy decides to put it to the test by asking him to make a prediction; if he's right, she'll give him a shiny gold piece. If he's wrong, she'll break something in his body.

-Are all surprised at the Orange Mutant's luck (or perhaps real ability?) when he predicts rain and it does in fact start to drizzle a little the next day.

-Proceed to the south, killing a few hapless kobolds and making a point of keeping Priscilla sedated by periodic clubbings.

-watch as a still-skeptical Sandy challenges the Orange Mutant a second night, with the same 'wager'. He "predicts" that the party will soon have a detour through some ruins.

-run into a group of Green Mutant Barbarian warriors, who are at war with the hyper-aggressive Purple Mutants.

-Have to do a bit of explaining at the presence of a (non-barbarian) purple mutant (Shul the rogue) among them. But eventually convince the Green Mutants that they're here to deal with the Purple Mutants, and that they should be taken to the Green Mutant village.

-learn that the Purple Mutant Barbarians have always been assholes, but have become completely warlike after converting to the worship of something called the Necro-Treant.

-are amused as Shul the Rogue, realizing that he might run into some serious trouble in a village full of people who despise purple mutants, tries to use his 'disguise' skill and Queen Priscilla's makeup kit to hide his racial identity. Rather than ending up looking like a non-purple mutant, he manages to end up looking like something along the lines of a Purple Mutant Circus-Clown/Prostitute.

-meet the Green Mutant Chief, and try to convince him that all the other mutant tribes in the region must join forces against the Purple Mutants, the Necro-Treant, and his army of Zombie-Treants. The Orange Mutant Shaman decides to try his luck by suggesting they do the meeting in "the ruins", and turns out to have once again shown his amazing psychic-skills/luck by the response that indicates that there are indeed ruins (albeit "forbidden" ones) nearby.

-note that Sandy, immediately after paying the Orange Mutant yet another shiny gold piece, is especially interested in going to ruins that are "forbidden", since there's likely to be stuff to kill and/or loot there, and her urge to break people has not been fulfilled in quite some time.

-decide to head off to the ruins, leaving Priscilla behind at the Green Mutant village, in the spare time they have while they wait for the great council of mutant chiefs (that will take place in the "sacred grove").

-find that the forbidden ruins are full of deadly spindly-killerbeetles.

-force the creepy ex-street-waif to poke the beetle nest with his 10' pole until they all rush him. Then wait until the orphan is dead before cutting the beetles to pieces. Generally agree that having gotten rid of the pervy street-waif and having gained a six-pack of magic potions and 25000 platinum pieces was a very good trade-off.

-camp out near the ruins, where Sandy again engages in some prophecy fun-time with the Orange Shaman, having quickly turned from being an angry skeptic to a true-believer in the Shaman's Psychic-hotline skills. He makes the unlikely prediction that Sandy (by far the best fighter of the party) will do poorly in battle and have her abilities fall into doubt.

-get attacked that night by a positively terrifying Zombie-Treant.

-get themselves into a tight spot when the rogues find their backstabs do nothing, the cleric fails his attempt at divine-aid, and Sandy, incredibly, keeps missing her attack rolls.

-start to wonder whether the Orange Shaman's predictions are a prophecy or a kind of curse; not that he will comment in mid-battle, as he's busy faking a heart-attack and playing dead in the desperate hope the Treant won't tear him to pieces.

-are only saved at the last minute by a hail-mary (pardon the pun) second Divine-Aid attempt on the part of the Cleric, where he manages to call down the lightning on the Zombie Treant.

-start to realize that to the cleric, his new big bag of platinum pieces are really little more than 'get-out-of-divine-disapproval' tokens.

-return to the Green Mutant Village only to find that it's been raided by the Purple Mutants, that two of the Chief's daughters have been kidnapped to be used as sacrifices to the Necro-Treant, and that Queen Priscilla has been taken as well.

-decide they'll have to try to rescue the Chief's daughters, even if that means they'll probably have to rescue Priscilla as well.

-want to go to the great gathering of the Chiefs first, and convince the Green Mutant Chief to come with them after all (he'd initially decided to forget the whole thing, after being told of something the Orange Mutant psychic had said in passing).

-Get to the Sacred Grove only to find that the chiefs of all the other mutant tribes have been slaughtered by a force of Purple Mutants and Zombie-Treants; one unit of which end up encountering the party and attacking.

-once again find themselves in a very tight spot; especially after the cowardly Green Mutant Chief runs away rather than fight it out. But this time the Orange Mutant Shaman manages to distract the Treant by drinking a potion of animal control and summoning a large flock of woodpeckers to harass it. Suddenly, the battle has become, for the zombie-treant, a scene out of a Hitchcock movie.

-Manage to destroy the Treant and kill most of the Purple Mutants (except a couple that they keep to interrogate with extreme prejudice), but are saddened by the tragic death by spear-blow of the Orange Mutant Psychic, just as the tide of battle was turning.

-can't help but note that the Psychic sure didn't see that one coming...